F.B.I. Rules Out Tampering In a Fatal Cyanide Poisoning

Published: January 8, 1993

MORRISTOWN, Tenn., Jan. 7—
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has concluded that there was no product tampering by any other person when a Morristown man died in November as a result of taking cyanide that had been placed in a packet of headache powder, a spokesman for the bureau said Wednesday.

That finding, taken together with the powder manufacturer's conclusion at the time that the packet had obviously been tampered with, suggests that the 51-year-old man, William Tucker Williams, may have altered the packet himself and then committed suicide.

But although the county prosecutor here is investigating the case as a possible suicide, the F.B.I. spokesman, Wayne Baker, had no comment on that possibility or on how the bureau had ruled out tampering by a second party.

The death of Mr. Williams led last month to a nationwide recall of the headache remedy by its maker, the Goody's Manufacturing Company of Winston-Salem, N.C.